Chapter 24

“This isn’t what you want to do.”

Hunter’s voice was strained, his body tense and poised for battle as I slipped beneath his skin. I wasn’t even sure he knew I was present, in fact, the intensity of his focus blocking out small matters like a mind-melding mate.

Not that I blamed him. Because the view before our eyes would have raised my hackles too if I’d had a physical body to command. The cabin around us was dimly lit, no windows breaching the log walls and only the open door behind our back letting daylight shine inside. Meanwhile, beneath the scent of blood, the residence smelled musky and dangerous, like the den of an overwintering predator.

This is what Goodpasture’s house should have smelled like, I realized. Perhaps that’s why I’d been so edgy when Hunter and I first sought Grey inside that human’s residence—my subconscious had noted that the space was far too human to belong to the enforcer before us. In contrast, I understood instantly that this stark, one-room cabin was what the enforcer we’d been hunting called his home.

I barely caught glimpses of the cabin out of the corners of Hunter’s eyes, though, because my mate’s gaze was focused on the living beings at the center of the carnage. Grey was in human form, crouched on the rough plank floor atop a prone two-legger. Beside them, blood splattered across the furniture and walls. Worse, the uber-alpha’s chin dripped with viscous fluid as if he’d been chewing upon his victim with dull human teeth.

Now, the enforcer cocked his head to one side and growled out words that could only have originated with his lupine half. “He’s a killer. Stormwinder charged me with stopping killers.”

I shivered. Or maybe Hunter shivered and I felt the echoes of the shared movement. Beside us, Robert coughed out his disgust, but my mate didn’t let his gaze waver from the uber-alpha who had taken his duties one step too far. “He’s not a shifter. It’s not your duty to police one-bodies.”

In reply, Grey merely growled and lowered his lips back down to the form caged beneath his iron-hard arms. And as the enforcer moved slightly to one side, I saw with horror that Goodpasture’s chest still rose and fell, his eyes remained open, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream. The man might have been a serial killer, but surely he didn’t deserve to be eaten alive.

And then my wolf was there in Grey’s brain right alongside my human half. The fact that she was present, leaving our earthly body unmanaged, was distressing. Worse, though, were the words that came out of her virtual mouth.

Blood, she sang dreamily. Hungry. Tasty. Salty blood.

With a jolt, I yanked us away from my mate, away from the terrifying scene that had awoken a feral side of my wolf I’d thought long since vanquished.

Back to the beach. Back to the enemy...who instead materialized into a one-body family. Father, mother, son, fishing pole. They were harmless.

But my wolf wasn’t. She was jittery, ire raised. Enemy, she caroled. Tasty. Hungry. Salty blood.

My head pounded, my vision dimmed. This felt like all the other times when I’d passed out and lost hours of memory. Hours during which children were terrified and rams were slaughtered.

Over the last few days, I’d allowed myself to accept Dale’s benign diagnosis since there was no hard evidence pointing to my wolf as culprit and since the episodes seemed to have faded into the past. But now I was standing alone on the beach a short distance away from unwitting one-bodies, my wolf craving blood and my own consciousness fading fast.

Wolf! Stop! I berated her. Or I tried to berate her.

Instead, I found my human half sinking deeper into the wolf’s growling belly. I found myself drowning beneath an abrupt undertow that dragged me relentlessly away from any ability to influence the actions of the beast.

And, as a mental image of a grinning Stormwinder unaccountably flashed in front of my eyes, I felt the wolf’s haunches bunch beneath her.

The one-bodies were holidaying, unaware of any dangers in the National Seashore where they’d chosen to vacation. They’d planted a shade umbrella in the sand, had rolled out blankets and settled in to enjoy the empty beach.

Only the beach wasn’t empty. I—my wolf—had stalked up behind them until she was only a short sprint away from their defenseless skins. Then, with Stormwinder’s deep laughter echoing in our ears, my wolf ignored her ties to humanity. Growling, slobbering, she sprang.

***

“This isn’t who you are. This isn’t who you want to be,” Hunter continued as he paced ever so slowly toward his prey. My mate’s strength only made my own cowardice shine more brightly. Because I’d left my wolf behind and returned here, refusing to consider what my physical body might be doing while I watched my mate face down an uber-alpha werewolf stronger than himself.

Beside us, Robert’s breath caught as he fully took in Grey’s destructive power for the first time. Despite my caginess on other topics, I had warned the agent about alpha battles of will, figuring he deserved to know those details for the sake of preserving his own skin. So he understood as well as I did that the tiny icicles popping into existence in mid-air were a very bad sign indeed.

“You can’t stop me,” Grey growled now, his words more human than I would have expected given the waves of wolf rolling off his skin. Bright blue eyes peered up at us and the measured nature of his words almost felt worse than when his wolf had been entirely in the lead.

“And why would you want to try?” the enforcer continued when no one else seemed inclined to speak. “I’ve done everything I could to make Fen happy. I obeyed my alpha and planted the ram leg, sent her wolf fleeing as ordered. But I didn’t go further, even though Stormwinder wanted me to. I didn’t force her wolf to kill.”

Even as he spoke, Grey clawed at Goodpasture’s bare chest with blunt human fingernails, ripping toward the life-giving cavity underneath. The scent of blood on the air grew yet stronger and the smile on the enforcer’s face turned more lupine as he raised one hand to his mouth and licked away a trail of blood.

I expected Hunter to launch himself forward and prevent further destruction. But my mate simply waited, letting the enforcer talk himself out.

“Now I can finally give Fen what she wants,” Grey said dreamily. “Emails and voice mails are so easy to access.” He cocked his head to one side, his intense gaze turning to the one-body by Hunter’s side. “I have you to thank for that, meat. So I won’t kill you, even though it’s the Law. I’ll let you live.”

“That’s big of you,” Robert said, his tone dry. He shifted uneasily and I felt Hunter’s hand reach out and still an incipient advance.

Then the enforcer’s icy gaze returned to me, to us. “Your mate wants this,” Grey continued simply, reaching out once more toward the bleeding body of the terrified one-body restrained by his knees and arm. “I can give it to her. A heart for her heart.”

And in response, my mate’s iron control cracked as eerie possessiveness surrounded me. It was strange to be on the inside, watching Hunter’s wolf rise to encompass his human mind. Glorified images of myself flickered across our shared vision. Me rumpled but far more beautiful than I’d actually been as I slept by Hunter’s side in that sleeping bag not many mornings past. Me triumphant, wolves trailing in my wake as I dove into battle Joan of Arc style.

Me smiling...but not at my mate. Instead, the light in my eyes stemmed from love for the uber-alpha crouched atop the human serial killer there in the darkened cabin that hemmed all of us in.

This last, fictional image was what pushed Hunter’s wolf over the edge. “Mine,” he growled, his tone more lupine than that of the feral enforcer. And I was distressed to realize that my mate’s footsteps were no longer stealthy as they beat toward the shifter crouched atop the one-body’s unmoving form. Toward the shifter who had, with three short sentences, become Hunter’s sworn enemy.

Smiling, Grey rose, leaving the wounded human behind at his feet. Goodpasture was just the bait, I realized, irrelevant now that Hunter was firmly on the hook. Was the enforcer actually obsessed with me, or had he been simply looking for a way to break through my mate’s iron control? And did the reason really matter when Hunter appeared so willing to relinquish his rational mind in the face of Grey’s maneuverings?

“I challenge you,” the stronger uber-alpha growled as Hunter approached. His words were a taunt and I could feel Hunter’s heart rate increase in response to the tone. “Loser submits completely,” Grey intoned. “Winner takes all.”

Around us, the air hummed with the magic of the oath about to be sworn. This was something strong alphas could do—take and give pure power with the weight of words. If Hunter accepted and lost, he’d be ceding his bloodlings, his territory, his mate to the other male.

As the mate in question, this seemed like a particularly terrible idea.

I attempted to speak, to pull Hunter out of whatever territorial daze he’d fallen into. I’d seen with my own eyes how Grey had bested the previously impenetrable fortress that was my mate at their initial meeting. An alpha battle of wills and Hunter the loser.

Until recently, the idea had seemed inconceivable. But now failure was not only conceivable but also likely as Hunter grinned at the younger alpha before him, ready to throw everything away for the chance to trounce his opponent.

Don’t do it! I screamed. Or tried to scream. But I was only a silent passenger, my own body caught in another battle not of my choosing. I could look and feel, but I couldn’t speak or touch. Instead, I drifted, lost and alone in the mind of a mate who abruptly felt like a stranger.

“Loser submits completely,” Hunter agreed. “Winner takes all.”

And with his words, the magic of the oath latched on and took hold of both males.